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U.S. coal miner Peabody Energy Corp said on Monday it has agreed to set aside collateral to cover future mine cleanup costs as part of its bankruptcy reorganization plan, ending its controversial use of “self-bonds,” Reuters reported yesterday. For decades the largest U.S. coal companies have used a federal practice known as “self-bonding,” which exempts companies from posting bonds or other securities to cover the cost of returning mined land to its natural state, as required by law. Concerns over how Peabody, the world’s largest private-sector coal miner, would finance about $1 billion in self-bonds when it emerges from bankruptcy protection had led a series of complaints over its reorganization plan. Under a deal announced yesterday, Peabody said that it had arranged for $1.26 billion in third-party bonds and $14.5 million in a state bond pool in Indiana, one of the states where it held self-bonds, to fully satisfy its financing requirements.

PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP’s mix-up at the Oscars could carry a high cost if jurors arrive at a malpractice trial next week suspecting the global accounting firm is error-prone, Bloomberg News reported on Friday. Until a PwC accountant handed Warren Beatty the wrong envelope for the Best Picture award, its lawyers only had to worry about adversary MF Global Holdings, Ltd. Now, PwC’s attorneys will also be concerned that jurors who watched the Feb. 26 awards ceremony will begin the trial doubting the firm’s expertise, jury consultants said. That’s particularly worrisome in a case where New York-based PwC is accused of contributing to the 2011 collapse of MF Global, the N.Y. brokerage formerly run by Jon Corzine. MF Global is seeking as much as $3 billion in a trial that will feature Corzine’s testimony about events leading up to the firm’s failure. "The MF Global meltdown is entirely unrelated to what happened at the Oscars," said Leticia Ostler, a jury consultant in San Diego. Yet jurors may ask "what’s to say they’re not making the same mistake in other areas?"

Two former executives at SunEdison Inc., the solar-power company that filed for bankruptcy protection last year, filed whistleblower lawsuits claiming they were fired after sounding the alarm about the company’s precarious finances, the Wall Street Journal reported. Carlos Domenech and Pancho Perez, who held senior positions at two SunEdison subsidiaries, last week sued their former employers and top officials including former SunEdison Chief Executive Ahmad Chatila. They are seeking back pay and damages for what they say were retaliatory firings after they voiced concerns to senior management and the board.

Stacks of sky-blue shipping containers, one of the last assets of bankrupt Hanjin Shipping Co., litter ports on both coasts. Now a fight is brewing in U.S. Bankruptcy Court over who can sell them, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday. Earlier this month, a Seoul court declared Hanjin bankrupt and ordered the firm’s liquidation, bringing about the final chapter of the ocean-shipping industry’s largest-ever collapse. All that remains of Hanjin will be liquidated, including ships, stakes in seaport terminals and other assets such as its containers. In a court filing this week in New Jersey bankruptcy court, attorneys for a handful of Hanjin’s creditors asked for permission to foreclose on the container assets and sell them.